2018 SASS EL Prelims P1 SectC w Ans

SASS 2018 4E5N EL Prelim Exam – Sample Essays 1 Q 3. Describe your favourite place and explain why this place holds so much meaning for you. There is a playground near my home that I used to frequent with my father. We first visited it when I could walk independently but was barely capable of reaching the cookie jar on top of a kitchen counter without assistance. Everything seemed to overwhelm your senses when you were younger. After all, you were experiencing everything for the first time. The multi-chromatic colours of the world seemed sharper and more vivid; the sounds, more clear and melodious. The world seemed more spontaneous, wonder filled and ripe for adventure. The simplest things in life can become objects of fixative obsession for toddlers and who can blame them? The second visit to the zoo or second time eating chocolate will never be as magical or surreal as the first. This playground was nothing to brag about. There was a swing that I had imagined was capable of sending me to the moon if only my father had the required strength, and a tall lead-paint covered slide with a see-saw set next to it. The colour of the slide was an obnoxiously garish crimson and the pivot of the see-saw had two cartoon horses plastered around it, directly opposite one another. It was no bigger than half a school hall. Still, I remember countless days spent there, running around with boundless energy supplied by the vigour of youth. I remember the zephyr caressing my supple cheeks on each ride down the slide, as it seemingly accelerated me to the speed of light, thinking to myself that if only it were longer, maybe -- just maybe -- I could have flown like Superman. I felt safer at the playground than I did at home despite it being a public place. It was the only location in the neighbourhood that seemed to be unmolested by the stench of industrial smog and pollution. The breeze had a crisp and crystalline quality to it that I sorely miss and the overall atmosphere of the place was one of carefree optimism. Looking back, it is painful to think that there was a moment when my father and I went there for the last time –without realising it. Alas, today, the playground is an art of commissioned mess awaiting its death sentence imposed by the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Singapore. The lead paint has corroded -- it sharply protrudes in awkward angles from the smooth stainless-steel sheet it is laid on and the swing’s chains have rusted into immobility. Even if they could still move with creaking noises, the flaking and compromised structure probably would not even support a child’s weight. The cartoon horses have decayed into macabre caricatures of what they once were and now seem hostile, alien and even satanic. The entire carnival of rust stands in blatant defiance of every public safety code. Last I heard, the demolition team m